Wumart Sets New Standards for Chinese Retail Industry, Selects
mySAP(TM) ERP and SAP for Retail to Replace Legacy Information
Systems and Support Further Growth BEIJING, Sept. 28
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As continuing evidence of its global
leadership in providing business software to retailers, SAP AG
(NYSE: SAP) today announced that Wumart Group, one of the largest
and fastest-growing private supermarket chains in China (listed at
Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Stock Code 8277), has selected mySAP(TM)
ERP and SAP(R) for Retail to upgrade the company's information
systems to drive profits. With the selection of SAP, Wumart becomes
the first Chinese supermarket chain to implement an international
enterprise resource planning (ERP) and retail package from a top
global enterprise software provider. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050310/SFTH009LOGO-a ) The
agreement marks another major success for SAP in the highly
competitive retail market in China. As a retail giant, Wumart
extends SAP's portfolio of Chinese customers, which already
includes leading manufacturers and financial services and
petrochemical companies. SAP will enable Wumart to roll out an ERP
and retail system that connects its headquarters with more than 500
outlets to enhance management control, optimize business operations
and support corporate core business processes, including category
management, internal supply chain management, commodity planning
and chain store management. With the SAP implementation, Wumart
will be fully equipped to improve the company's sensitivity and
response time in a market where competition is becoming
increasingly fierce. In addition, the SAP system will accommodate
the integration of existing and future acquisitions. The first
phase of the project includes SAP for Retail at the Wumart
headquarters and Tianjin branch; a logistics system for the
distribution centers in Beijing; plus an interface to Wumart's
point-of-sale (POS) system and the SAP retail outlet system. The
overall implementation will take approximately one year. Started 12
years ago as one of the first supermarket chains in China, Wumart
has emerged as one of the dominant retailers in the country with
more than 700 stores, including hypermarkets, supermarkets and
convenience stores in northern, eastern and northwestern China and
$2.52 billion (RMB 20 billion yuan) in annual sales. In the past
year, Wumart acquired several domestic chains, including Chaoshifa
and MerryMart, the fourth- and fifth-largest supermarket chains in
Beijing; Xinhua Stores, one of the largest and fastest growing
retailers in northwest China; and Times Supermarkets, one of the
leading retailers in eastern China. Wumart's selection of SAP shows
that China's retail industry is entering a new stage in the
development of its IT infrastructure. To better serve their growing
customer bases, Chinese retailers recognize the need to replace
their homegrown and domestic retail software with standardized ERP
and retail applications from world-class vendors. With SAP, Wumart
will have the ability to adopt global best business practices for
management and software solutions to improve scalability and reduce
the complexity of its overall IT environment. Wumart's rapid
geographic growth created the need to upgrade the company's
information systems. Its legacy IT system was insufficient to
support data analysis, forecasting and automation, hindering the
company's overall development. To ensure a continued smooth growth
path, Wumart's management formed an ERP task force to evaluate
international software solutions that can provide integrated
management and business process optimization as well as global best
practices of retail business. The extensive selection process began
in November 2005. Led by Dr. Zhang Wenzhong, chairman of the board
of Wumart, the ERP project team visited all major software vendors,
including SAP, and more than 20 international companies that had
successfully implemented ERP systems in China, France, Switzerland,
Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. After a 10- month
evaluation process, Wumart selected SAP for its broad experience,
strong customer base and proven product integration across retail,
financial and logistical operations. Other deciding factors
included SAP's solid R&D investments and groups in China, as
well as SAP's best practices and the scale of SAP service offerings
for retail. "Wumart has always played the leading role in applying
advanced information technology for the retail industry in China,"
said Dr. Zhang Wenzhong. "Wumart was the first retail group in
China to adopt commercial point-of-sale and management information
systems and utilize the Internet to connect the headquarters with
the chain stores. By implementing SAP for Retail, we can establish
an integrated management and information system for retail, finance
and logistics. We will also draw on SAP's best practices for the
global retail business to improve our management processes and
operational efficiency and to integrate our acquisitions so that we
can make the most of the synergies they bring." "We are thrilled
that the Wumart Group, China's fastest growing retail giant, has
selected SAP," said Klaus Zimmer, president and CEO, SAP North
Asia. "We look forward to providing Wumart with our experience in
the global retail industry to help the company build a truly
advanced management platform, fostering further business growth and
setting international standards for the retail industry in China."
SAP China Consulting will provide the implementation on this
project. About Wumart Group Started in 1994, Wumart was one of the
earliest supermarket chains in China. Today it is also one of the
largest, with over 700 large hypermarkets, supermarkets and
convenience stores in northern, eastern and northwestern China. It
is also the fastest growing Chinese retailer, maintaining steady
growth of both sales and profit. In the past year, Wumart has
acquired the Chaoshifa and MerryMart supermarket chains, the fourth
and fifth largest among Beijing retail chains. It has also acquired
Xinhua Department Stores, northwest China's largest retail chain
and an A-share listed company, as well as China's 28th largest
retail chain, Times Supermarkets of Jiangsu province. In November,
2003, Wumart Stores, Inc, a subsidiary of the Wumart Group, was
listed in Hong Kong. It was the first Chinese private commercial
enterprise to be listed overseas, and set records for
over-subscription ratio, highest P/E ratio and the biggest sum of
funds raised in Hong Kong's Gem Board stock market. About SAP SAP
is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more
than 34,600 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP(R)
applications-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small
and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global
organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(R) platform to drive
innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps
enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer
relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create
efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations.
SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of
more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial
services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in
more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges,
including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol
"SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/ ) (*) SAP
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